Keith Larman

I like David's article as well.

And frankly those who wring their hands about things like rank ("Our ranks are more meaningful than yours" or "I'm higher ranked than you" or "We don't have rank therefore you guys aren't as deeply humble as we are" or "I'm a 25 year old 13-th dan" or ...) seem to me to miss the point.

Rank seems to be mostly an issue (in my experience) for those who are still in the kyu ranks. But at that point we're talking about beginners, really. And in reality only 1 or 2 out of 10 will tough it out past shodan. So who really cares? Those who stick it out will usually realize that it was silly by the time they get up there into the yudansha ranges. So once you get past shodan, well, you're either into it because you're hooked and ranked becomes about as low a priority as it could possibly be. Or you're so insecure you worry about it constantly or you're so puffed up that you need to be seen as important. If you find yourself in the latter group, well, that's a symptom of personal issues IMHO and has little to do with whether an organization awards explicit ranks or not.

And one group I am familiar with has no rank other than a series of incredibly silly titles they use to refer to their instructors. Grandmaster, professor, etc. Silly, silly, silly. And I've heard these guys talk about how great they are because they're so humble... Um, okay...

Some people have high rank and can walk the walk. Others with that rank can't. Some people have no rank and can walk the walk. And many with no rank talk the talk but fall on their faces rather regularly... Over the years there have been a lot of blowhards on boards like this who turned out to be truly unimpressive when folk finally met up in person...

If you've been around long enough in any organization it ain't all that hard to figure out who's who regardless of rank and titles... So why worry about it one way or the other?

To me the entire discussion is quite silly.